The day of his coming, the Queen received him in the Long Parlour, dressed mostly in white, with a little black here and there. She stood about mid-floor, with her women, pages, and gentlemen of the household, and tried in vain to control her excitement. Those who knew her best, either by opportunity or keen study, considered that she had made up her mind already. This was a marriage, this meeting of cousins: here in her white and faint rose, shivering like the dawn on the brink of new day, with fixed eyes and quick breath—here among her maidens stood the bride. Appearances favoured the guess—which yet remained a guess. She had travelled far and awfully; but had told no one, spoken no whispers of her journeyings since that day of shame and a burning face, when she had sent Adam Gordon to Edinburgh Castle, heard Melvill’s message, and scared away Châtelard to his dog’s death. Not a soul knew where her soul had been, or whither it had now flown for refuge: but two guessed, and one other had an inkling—the judging Italian.
They used very little ceremony at Saint Andrews. The Queen hated it. An usher at the stair’s foot called up the Prince’s style, and could be heard plainly in the parlour; yet Mr. Erskine, Captain of the Guard, repeated it at the door. There followed the clatter of a few men-at-arms, a trampling, one or two hasty voices—Lethington’s whisper among them (he always shrilled his s‘s); then the anxious face of the Secretary showed itself. The young lord, dressed in white satin, with a white velvet cloak on one shoulder, and the collar of SS round his neck, stooped his head at the door, and went down stiffly on one knee. Behind him, in the entry, you could count heads and shoulders, see the hues of red, crimson, claret—feathers, a beam of light on a steel breastplate. He had come well squired. ‘Welcome, cousin,’ said the Queen shyly, in a low and calling tone. My young lord rose; two steps brought him before her. He knelt again, and would have received her hand upon his own; but she looked down brightly at his bent and golden head—looked down like a considering bird; and then (it was a pretty act)—‘Welcome, cousin Henry,’ she said again, and gave him both her hands. He was afoot in a moment, and above her. To meet his look downwards she must lift hers up. ‘Welcome, cousin,’ once more; and then she offered him her cheek. He kissed her, grew hot as fire, looked very foolish, and dropped her hands as if they burnt him.
But he led her—she not unwilling—to her chair, and sat beside her the moment she invited him. She was bashful at first, blushed freely and talked fast; he was stiff, soldierly, blunt: when she was beyond him he made no attempt to catch her up. Those bold eyes of his were as blank as the windows of an empty house. They did not at all disconcert her: on the contrary, she seemed to see in his inertia the princely phlegm, and to take delight in lowering the key of her speech to the droning formalities of an audience. The difficulty of it, to her quick, well-charged mind, was a spur to her whole being. You could see her activities at drill; the more stupid she strove to be, the more spiritual she showed. She took enormous pains to set him at his ease, and so far succeeded that (though she could not clarify his brains) she loosened his tongue and eye-strings. He was soon at his favourite trick of looking about him; passed all the maids in review, and preferred Livingstone to any: next to her Seton—‘a pretty, soft rogue.’ He saw and knew, but did not choose to recognise, Lady Argyll.
Certain presentations followed. Englishmen were brought up to kiss hands—tall, well-set-up, flaxen young men: a Standen, a Curzon of Derbyshire, a Throckmorton, nephew of an old acquaintance in France, a Gresham, etc., etc. After these came one Scot. ‘Madam, my kinsman Douglas.’
There came stooping before her a certain Archie Douglas of Whittinghame, remotely of the prince’s blood, but more nearly of the red Chancellor Morton’s. He was a young man, exceedingly thin, with a burnt red face, shifty eyes, a smile, and grey hair which did not make him look old. Black was his wear, with a plain white ruff.
‘I have heard of you, Master Douglas,’ says the Queen, measuring her words. ‘You are a priest in Israel after the order of Mr. Knox.’
‘An humble minister, madam, so please your Majesty.’
‘Ah, my pleasure, sir!’ She would not look at him any more, either then or ever after. She used to call him the Little Grey Wolf. Now, whether is it better for a man to be spoken by his sovereign in discomfortable riddles, than not at all? This was the question which Archie Douglas put to himself many times the day.
The Queen would have honours nearly royal paid to the young prince. The officers of the household, the ladies, were all presented; and all must kiss his hand. But all did not. Lord Lindsay did not; Mr. Erskine did not, but saluted him stiffly and withdrew behind the throne. Mr. Secretary did it; Lord Ruthven did it elaborately; Lady Argyll changed her mind midway, and did it. The Italian secretary, last of all, went down on both his knees, and, looking him straight in the face, cried out, ‘Salut, O mon prince!’ which, under the circumstances, was too much. But the Queen was to be pleased with everything that day, it seemed, for it delighted her.